victorian/edwardian houses or new houses?

Agreed. Some of the best houses are those built in this period. Find a property built in the 60's or 70's by a local independent builder with a good reputation. OK, you may pay a premium and the wiring, windows and heating system may be at the end of their life (depending how well they've been maintained, or not) but the basic infrastructure will be such that it's worth spending money on.

I have not come across a new house where this is the case.

It you want a truly "individual" house then selfbuild, it is the only way. I see many new developments with "many" differing types of house styles. The same type of boxes went in the 1970s estate. Not any more.

The older houses on a development tend to go for more, as they streets are tarmaced and gardens are more mature, and no mud.

Victorian house were speculative and only had a design life of about 50 years too. Every torn away some of the facade of Victorian houses? Bodgers were there then too.

I've go a new, but I would check the reputation of the builder and check the build as it goes up. Each snag you see give to the site manger and BCO, and don't take crap off them as you are paying for it. Check that cavities have no snots inside and that all the blockwork is fitted and cut properly with a saw and tight fitting. Check that the joists resting on the blocks have enough cement around them to seal it up, otherwise cold air fro the cavity will enter the floor space. Check that any plastic pipes are clipped well; they need to be. The rest is general stuff such as finishing.

Identify an unbuilt house and go there every day while they build it? Then tell them they aren't doing a good enough job?

It would depend on the older housing stock. If it's all back to back terraces built next to th'pit, I can understand the preference for a new house.

However, if it's good Victorian or Edwardian stock built in a decent part of town it will be closer to the amenities than some faceless new house built on a flood plain or other land that nobody else wants.

If you can. Go at least twice a week

That is the idea. make a snag list and send it to the BCO, if you are afraid to upset the site manager. Remember! You are paying for it.

Having been in far too many 'estate' type houses (friends etc) we'd personally never buy a new-ish house because the rooms are too small or impractical and if you're downstairs you can hear someone fart upstairs. My sister's house is about 20 years old and it's an awful plasterboard/chipboard job, even into the garage. When someone's in the main bedroom they sound like they're about to come through the floor!

We're currently in a house built in 1886, and the only thing I don't like about it is the floors on the top floor all have a little too much spring for my liking. Oh, and the whole building shakes when trucks thunder past on the main road and hit the pothole convieniently outside the front gate.

This one is definitely not a first time buyer's house unless you're either very practical or have a lot of spare cash - when we bought it it had dry rot, wet rot, weevil infestation, rising damp (in only 1 room!), no heating, no electric or lights on the top floor and considerable water damage from an obvious constantly leaky roof including grass growing above the bathroom ceiling!

The only non-loadbearing wall had been built AFTER the ground floor floor had been installed and it wasn't supported by anything, so years of water penetration at the front of the house had caused the nails and wood holding it to the bricks to rot and its own weight made it sag and buckle the living room and hall floors.

The first building inspector nearly shat when he saw it :)

And we still bought it, purely because it had massive amounts of character and space, and none of the damage was irrepairable over time.

Things that still need doing: repair all sash windows and replace s***ty plastic ones with proper sashes. Fix the aforementioned wall properly (it's shored up on bricks now). Repair rest of water damage. Finish renovating the dining room when it's not full of old computers. Hope the ceiling doesn't come down! Repair all rotten wood in the porch. Finish summerhouse that had been allowed to almost completely rot away. Fit proper window in the room I'm in now. Renovate and probably replaster top floor landing, and repair cracks caused by heating the house properly for the first time. Rewire ground floor so everything isn't surface mounted.

Of course, not all Victorian houses have suffered this sort of neglect, but if all of the above doesn't put you off go Victorian. Apart from anything else this place is now worth 4 times what we paid for it :oD My sister's isn't.

-- cheers,

witchy/binarydinosaurs

Sounds like IMM to me.

They should be, more or less. Its definitely possible.

I think its the wrong question to start with.

Houes come in a range of conditions and lifespans irrsepective of when they are put up.

Ther are some truisms around to illusdtate

(i) Old houses that have stood for 300+ years are probably, lucky, well maintained, or well built.

(ii) EVERY house needs a minor upgrade every 15 years, and a major one (up to 30% of the cost of replacement) every 60 years. Its also true to say that older woners mend and make do to take em up to the 60 year mark: When they die, its usually time for a massive gutting and modernisation.

(iii) A brilliant house in a crap location is worth less than a crap house in a brilliant location.

None of thes issues really answers the OP's question,. becaue its the wrong question. There are good and bad examples of both.

The question you should be asking is, whether THIS house, at a price I can get it, represents good value for money to ME, with my (nonexistent? or not?) DIY skills.

Sounds very similar to our 1903 house. Only ground and first floor, but on a main road. Originally detached, but 'terraced' either side in the

Similar things here!

Living room in our case! Old computers too....

Living room ceiling did that before Christmas.

Whole-house rewire nearly finished...!

Same here. My sister-in-law has a habit of losing money on houses, but this place too is worth about 4 x what we paid.

Agreed, though the advantage of a crap house in a brilliant location is that the planners will probably let you knock it down and build something else. If it's vaguely historical, house and land may be worth less than the land would be on its own.

A relative has a 20 year old large house. They have just replaced all the windows to double glazed sealed windows, and most of CH system needs replacing as some rads are starting to rot. It was installed incorrectly and was sucking in air for the first 5 years of its life. The boiler is a very inefficient cast iron job, so a real re-do needed. The gutters also show signs of wear too. The downstairs toilet was always slow in emptying. It needs a HepVo in the basin to vent it. The roof tiles have lots of moss growing on them as well.

Then they'll be wondering why there is mould growing on the walls....

That's incompetent installation and lack of maintenance.

Why?

That's simply bad design and installation. Toilets are hardly rocket science......

That's no real issue and can easily be removed. I quite like to see a certain amount of lichens on roof tiles. It makes them look more interesting.....

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

I've been wondering about that - this year, I noticed a few small clumps of emerald green moss here and there on my roof. Is it likely to do any damage? If so, what sort of damage? An uncle who saw it, insisted it needed to be removed immediately, as it would damage the roof.

Sheila

No doubt that's the case and I didn't mean to sound as though I'm some sort of authority on them.

Which planet do you live on? Vast amounts of London are Victorian, and virtually the only ones which have been pulled down is if the plot they occupy could yield better returns by building flats on it. The odd gaps you see in some streets is usually due to external influence - ie the Germans...

Or, of course, the odd council that thought people would far prefer living in tower blocks. Did you used to work for a council?

It would be a strange Victorian house with one foot foundations - most have cellars to store the coal, etc.

Take a South Yorkshire pit village and demolish t' pit and pretty soon it's just as chocolate -boxy as a village in the Cotswolds.

Back to back houses are OK if well built specially of stone. But by and large they are too small to bring a family up in. OK for people who's kids have flown the nest.

My house was built in 1972. It's been well maintained but what worries me is that the "London Brick Co" "Heather" bricks seem to be deteriorating, surfaces spalling off in patches. Corners and edges rounding off. WTH do you do about that?

DG

Either live with it, bearing in mind that the bricks are 4.5" thick and losing an inch is not that significant or buy a few spares, cut them in halves lengthways and after creating a suitable hole around the existing brick, cement in half a brick. Much easier and stronger than trying to replace a complete brick. Alternatively, render the outside wall. London brick company commons are very soft and frequently show surface spall. That's why better houses use "stock" bricks, which are a different clay and fired at a higher temperature AIUI.

Regards Capitol

For once IMM is correct. In the Islington area of London, speculators only erected the front walls of the terrace. When a buyer appeared, the rest of the house was built. The building standards with locally made soft ricks( City Road), lime mortar, casual labour and no inspection, were very, very much worse than today. Frequently the house fell down either during or shortly after construction. Failing to tie the dividing walls into the front was a common failing ( and still creates havoc today, a friend bought one for £1M and then found out that to stop it falling down was going to cost him another £500K!) and adjacent houses were commonly completed by different builders.

Victorian houses are very popular today, only because the better examples have more space, convertible lofts and are in fashionable areas. Also lime mortar can be very forgiving of a lot of subsidence.

Regards Capitol